It's too hot to do much of anything...

...but I have been doing a little light stitching. When my friend Dot died last September, I inherited a number of started stitcheries pushed into a bag with a tangle of threads. Then a couple of weeks ago another friend passed onto me a couple more she had been given by a very elderly neighbour who was in the process of clearing the decks before I die...again, in the bag, was an assortment of un-numbered threads; some wound around cards and others in a tangle.

I have been able to finish this one of hedgerow flowers, as luckily the packaging and charts were in the bag with the cloth. It took the best part of an afternoon to untangle the threads, sort them into colours, and with the help of an ancient Anchor colour chart (lots of the newer numbers are not on it) loop them through the appropriate hole in the cardboard strip that was provided. Why this had not been done originally I have no idea. I have been stitching away for weeks now, on and off. It was very grubby, and had rust marks down one edge where the needles had been left in. I soaked it overnight in warm water and washing up liquid, but it is still not what one would call pristine. I may have to apply a little gentle agitation in a second wash before I do anything else with it. The rust stains haven't washed out of course, but they won't show if I decide to have it framed with a mat. If it doesn't come out clean after the next wash, I shan't bother with the expense.

The next one is already on the slate frame; Harbour View it is called. The instructions call for a lot of half cross stitch with a single strand on sea and sky. The stitcher has ignored this and stitched full cross stitch with two strands over the sky with the result that there isn't enough thread left to stitch the sea. There are only two shops in town that sell embroidery threads, and they both only stock DMC, not Anchor, so I have had to substitute from my stash. Having done quite a bit of stitching last night, I can now see that the thread I chose is a shade too light and hardly shows at all against the white Aida, so it is snip not stitch tonight...